Disa scutellifera A.Rich. 1840 SECTION Micranthae Photo by © Bob Campbell

Drawing Drawing by © Cogniaux and The Plant Illustrations Website

LATER

Common Name The Cup Shaped Disa

Flower Size .8" [2 cm]

Found in Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya in damp grasslands and grassy rocky slopes at elevations of 1800 to 2400 meters as a small to large sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial with ellipsoid, ovoid to elongate-ovoid, shortly tomentose tubers giving rise to both a sterile, erect stem enveloped by several overlapping sheaths and carrying 1 to 2 apical, lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate leaves and flowering stems that are rather stout and almost entirely enveloped by terete, adpressed sheaths and carrying 9 to 13, the lowermost short and sheath like and the rest, lanceolate, acute leaves that blooms in the later spring and summer on an erect, terminal, 2 to 7.6" [5 to 19 cm] long, densely 14 to many flowered inflorescence with leafly lanceolate, acuminate, the lower often longer than the flowers floral bracts.

Synonyms Disa schimperi N.E.Br. 1898

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of East Africa Piers 1968 photo as D scutellifera var alba photo ok; Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 1 Summerhayes 1968; Orchids of Kenya Stewart & Campbell 1996 photo fide; Field Guide to the Ethiopian Orchids Demissew, Cribb & Rassmussen 2004 photo fide;

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